NEWS - Floating Farms In Myanmar's

[Rangoonp@xxxxxxx]

Subject: NEWS - Floating Farms In Myanmar's Watery World 

Floating Farms In Myanmar's Watery World 
                                                                 
via the "Salt Lake Tribune"
   
         BY PATRICK McDOWELL

         THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

             When he goes out to weed his tomato patch, Myo Win
         takes a boat. 
             There's no solid earth for the vegetables to take root
         in, or for Myo Win to walk on. The vines grow on a
         floating plantation in the middle of Inlay Lake. To tend
         them, Myo Win paddles between the rows in his teak
         canoe. 
             "I've been pulling up the weeds since I was 12, but I
         don't know how old I was when I first got in a boat," says
         Myo Win, 21. "Just a few days, probably." 
             Myo Win is one of thousands of farmers, fishers,
         merchants and monks who live as semi-amphibians on
         Inlay Lake, a placid water world set in picturesque
         mountains 1,300 meters (4,300 feet) above sea level in
         rugged Shan State, northeastern Myanmar. 
             Remote for centuries, the lake and its unique
         inhabitants have become one of the country's more
         popular attractions in recent years since the long-ruling
         military regime eased tourism restrictions to bring in
         more hard currency. 
             But a tourism boycott in 1996-97 to protest political
         repression and the general remoteness of nearly
         everything in Myanmar, also known as Burma, have
         helped keep down the numbers of visitors and maintain
         Inlay Lake's charm. 
             Except for the addition of motorized longboats and
         electricity at the small hotels in Nyaungshwe, the biggest
         town in the area, the lifestyle has changed little in
         centuries. 
             Flat as glass and mostly shallow, Inlay Lake's waters
         provide rich fishing grounds and floating farmland for
         people dwelling in thatch and bamboo houses built on
         stilts in villages above the water. 
             The residents seem grafted to hollowed-out teak
         canoes, some of them a century old. Children learn how
         to handle a boat not long after they begin walking. 
             Eventually, they master Inlay Lake's famed rowing

         technique -- standing in the prow, the forward part of the
         boat, and wrapping a leg around an oar to paddle. 
             Everyone hunts fish at least part of the time, trapping
         prey in cone-shaped nets thrust to the lake bottom, and
         then spearing them. 
             Myo Win and his family are primarily farmers,
         cultivating so-called floating islands composed of dirt
         and swamp vegetation. 
             From a large floating island, farmers cut off strips and
         tow them back to their individual plots, laying them out in
         rows and fixing them to the lakebed with bamboo stakes.

             Individual families mark off plots of a few rows, each
         with fences and gates, and keep a lookout for rustlers
         from watch towers. 
             The self-irrigating farmland and cooler climate -- at
         least for tropical Myanmar -- combine to produce
         flowers, tomatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, beans, melons
         and fine strawberries. 
             Underwater weeds grow profusely. Myo Win spends
         several hours a day dragging them up between the
         tomato rows with a long pole until his 13-meter (40-foot)
         canoe is piled high. 
             "It's hard work," Myo Win says, straining from his
         shoulders to ankles to haul up a new pole of weed from
         the bottom. "My father is 50 and he can't do this work
         any more. His back just gave out." 
             Four times a week, Myo Win paddles his load of
         weeds to markets along the 22-kilometer (15-mile) lake
         and sells it to shore farmers for fertilizer. Price: 300 kyats
         (80 cents). 
             By the standards of Myanmar, one of the poorest
         countries in Asia, the family is fairly well off, growing and
         catching much of their own food. Selling tomatoes, fish
         and fertilizer allows Myo Win, his parents and six siblings
         to get by on about 800,000 kyats ($2,285) a year. 
             They buy and sell goods at a moveable market that
         rotates every day between different villages along the
         lake. It's a chance for the lake dwellers -- mostly from the
         ethnic Intha minority -- to exchange goods with people
         from the hills, mostly ethnic Shans and smaller groups. 
             On a recent day, the canal approaching the
         Mainthauk village market was filled with scores of
         canoes and motorized longboats docked against a
         floating island jetty leading to the shore. 
             Sellers smoking fat cigars presided over thatched-roof
         stalls displaying wares ranging from betel chewing
         mixture to surplus army boots to orchids. 
             Hilltribe women in beaded costumes laid out blankets
         piled colorfully with chiles, tea and saffron for sale.
         Shoppers ate rice and fish dished out on banana leaves,
         the original disposable dinner plates. Dogs quarreled
         over the morsels. 
             "Business isn't so good," said Hla Maung, 62, who
         was selling tea leaves. "Prices of everything are going

         up, and there's not that many buyers. But this is the only
         trade we know." 
             
            IF YOU GO 

            Warning: The U.S. State Department, at its Web site
         (http://travel.state.gov), warns that Burma (Myanmar)
         experienced major student demonstrations in 1996, and
         demonstrations occurred again in August and
         September of 1998. 
           
        Rangoon Post Addition: There is an on going tourism / travel
boycott until the country's control is returned to the rightful-legal
people.